Demons
by rosabelle317
Summary: An unpleasant case from Sharon's past resurfaces, wreaking havoc on the present.
1. Chapter 1

**Notes: **This one is going to be on the shorter side, and will show Sharon just having the bestest, funnest week ever. This one was born out of discussions with SChimes and Force Unbroken, who shared my frustration that Sharon's threatening letters went nowhere last season and agreed that it was past time someone tried to kill her. :D

**Chapter I**

**Friday**

"Do you think we should move?"

Sharon turned her head towards him. He could tell from the way her lips were pressed into a thin, flat line that she was still uncomfortable and still in some pain, but she looked more puzzled than anything else. Rusty hoped that meant that the ice was helping. Or that the drugs had started working.

"Move?"

"Yeah," he said. "Like, live somewhere else?"

"Ah." Sharon lifted her hand. Rusty wasn't sure what stopped her, the sight of the brace on her wrist or the memory of the bandage on her forehead, but she grimaced as she became conscious of the unconscious gesture and slowly lowered her hand back to her lap. She was quiet a moment, then: "No."

"Are you sure?"

"Very."

"But, I—I mean..." He looked away, his hands clenching in his lap. He forced then to relax when his fingertips pressed into the tender skin on his palms, and tried not to wince. He didn't want her to worry about him, either. "That Wade guy, he tried to kill me here, okay? And now, _this_ guy, he could've..."

Fear tasted sour and stale in his mouth, and he swallowed hard.

"Rusty." Sharon's voice was gentle. "Wade Weller knew where we lived because he followed you. David Gardner knew where I lived because I told him. We're as safe here as we would be anywhere."

"I know." He swallowed again. "I—I mean, I knew that."

It was just that... this guy had been seriously scary and he'd _really_ hated her, and then there had been the gun... All of the fear that he hadn't had time to feel earlier was coiled around in his gut now. Part of it was pure selfishness—he needed Sharon. Like, he _really_ needed her, and if he'd lost her... he didn't know what he would've done, but it made him shift anxiously just thinking about it.

"As soon as I'm allowed to hold a pen again," Sharon went on, "I'll make another donation to the building association. That should help smooth over any complaints the neighbors might make. We'll be fine."

She smiled a little as she said it, but Rusty shifted uncomfortably in his chair, guilt weighing down his stomach. No matter what she said, that part was his fault.

He wasn't sorry, either, but he hadn't meant for her to get hurt.

But he guessed that hurt was better than dead. Sharon hadn't let him look afterwards, but there had still been blood on the sidewalk when they'd finally left the police station, after they'd each had the world's longest talk with some guy named Elliot. Rusty was pretty sure that neither of them had been sure what to make of the other. Elliot was quiet, serious, kind of boring, and really into the rules. Rusty could see why Sharon liked him.

But he guessed that Sharon hadn't taken in any orphans while she worked with Elliot, because Elliot had seemed more incredulous than anything else. He'd asked three times if Rusty was Captain Raydor's foster son. The third time, Rusty had spelled out that he was Captain Raydor's _former_ foster son who she was in the process of adopting and that had finally shut Elliot up, probably more out of surprise than anything else.

"Hey, Sharon?" Something else occurred to him then, and Rusty tried not to fidget. "I told that Elliot guy that you were getting a divorce. Was that supposed to be a secret?"

"No," she said. She pursed her lips. "Well... I would have preferred to keep it quiet until it was finalized, but word would have gotten around eventually, and I told several detectives myself."

"You did?"

She nodded. "After the break in. It came up."

Rusty tried not to shudder. As bad as today had been, _that_ had been worse.

Sharon must've known what he was thinking, because her look turned soft. "Honey."

"I'm... it's fine, Sharon," he said. He couldn't help looking to where the TV used to stand. The top of the entertainment cabinet was bare now. His eyes strayed a little to the left. So was the wall behind Sharon's desk.

"I'm sorry I—"

"No." Her voice turned sharp, and she sat up a little straighter. "You absolutely did the right thing."

"He trashed the place."

"But he didn't kill you," Sharon said. "Which is what would've happened if you had tried to intervene. Are we clear?"

Throat tight, Rusty nodded.

Sharon gave him another searching look but relaxed, settling into the pillows at her back. She shifted her legs a moment later, wincing, and then she sat forward again, stretching to rub her knee. One of the ice packs—the blue one, the one she'd pressed to his face the night his father had hit him—slipped and fell to the floor. Rusty stood and picked it up, because he saw her legs move again like she was going to do it herself and that was, like, the opposite of resting.

She shook her head when he started to drape it across her knee again. With her good hand, she carefully worked free the one below her knee. "They're too warm now."

Rusty took the second ice pack from her hands. They weren't frozen anymore but they were still cool to the touch, and felt soothing against his torn hands. He held onto them for a few moments before he took them back to the freezer. "What do you want instead?" he asked, studying the contents of the freezer. "There's, like... peas?"

"That's enough for now."

He frowned. "I thought you were supposed to be icing it."

"On and off, Rusty," she said. "Every couple of hours."

"Are you sure?"

"This isn't the first time I've done this."

That made his stomach do an anxious little flip, because... nothing could happen to Sharon, okay? He couldn't deal with that.

Slowly, Rusty shut the freezer door. "Do you need anything else?"

"I'm all right, thank you."

Reluctantly, he returned to the living room and settled himself in his chair facing her. She gave him a wan smile that he thought was supposed to reassure him. It didn't really.

Her expression turned slowly more thoughtful as they sat there in silence. "Rusty," she said quietly. "Do _you_ feel unsafe here?"

"What?"

"Was that what you were asking before?" she said. "When you brought up the idea of moving?"

He shook his head before she could get the wrong idea. "No. It wasn't that."

She sized him up, trying to decide if he was telling her the whole truth or not.

"I don't want to move, Sharon."

That was the last thing that he wanted. This place had become home, and though he knew that he would have to leave eventually—he hadn't decided yet, whether he wanted to stay in LA for college or not, but even if he did, he couldn't live with Sharon _forever_—but he like knowing that she would always let him come back here. He liked knowing that she would always be here.

"It's just that..." Rusty looked away. "He almost killed you."

His voice almost broke at the end there, but he bit down hard on the inside of his lip and held himself together.

"He didn't," she said firmly. "And now he's dead and I am fine." She paused. "Relatively speaking."

"I—I know."

"I'm sorry to ask," she said. "But I'm not supposed to drive for a few days, so if you wouldn't mind..."

"It's fine," he said. "I can take you to work again. I don't care."

"FID has until Monday night to finish their investigation so it might be Tuesday before I get back to work." She gave him an apologetic look. "I know this wasn't how you planned on spending your first few weeks of vacation."

"I don't _care_, Sharon," he repeated. "Really. I don't."

"And... my car is supposed to be ready to pick up tomorrow." Her hand made it only halfway to her forehead this time before she caught herself.

"I can go get it." He'd given her a hard time about the car earlier. He wouldn't have, if he'd known. At her look, he added, "I'll take the bus there. I'll be careful, Sharon, I swear."

She pursed her lips, head tilting in thought, and then she shook her head. "Lieutenant Flynn owes me a favor," she said. "I'll see what he's doing tomorrow. The two of you can go together. Drive _carefully_."

She added the last with an extremely pointed look, and Rusty tried not to sigh. "Sharon... I really _don't_ mind, okay? I'm just... glad you're all right."

"So am I." She looked at him, her head tilting. "I never thanked you, did I?"

Rusty shook his head. It had been more unhappy lecturing than thanking, really, but between the ringing in his ears from standing so close to the gunfire and being distracted by the fact that Sharon's face had been half covered in blood, he hadn't heard most of it.

"I stand by what I said earlier," she told him, her face settling into the same unhappy expression she'd worn earlier.

"I know."

"But... thank you." More sternly, she added, "_Never_ do anything like that again. Ever. I mean it, Rusty."

He shrugged. Joking about the papers she'd had him fill out probably wouldn't go over well, so he went with, "It was my turn."

"That's not how this works." Sharon was unimpressed. "You don't _get_ a turn. Let me see your hands."

Okay, Sharon.

But he didn't want to argue with her, not now. Right now, not ever. Dutifully, he went and held up his hands. Sharon cradled one between both of hers, the fingertips of her uninjured hand gentle as she rubbed his fingers between hers, carefully avoiding the abrasions on his palms. "You should put something on that."

"I will," he promised her. "Later. Soon."

It wasn't like he'd never skinned his palms and knees before, but he was starting to realize that she felt guilty too.

Which was ridiculous because it wasn't like she'd _wanted_ some psycho to try and kill her, and it wasn't like he'd actually gotten hurt, and it had been all _her_ stuff that had been destroyed. And maybe he'd been more terrified than he was willing to admit to her, but that wasn't her fault, either.

It wasn't like he was real bloodthirsty, either, but Rusty wasn't too sorry that the guy was dead.

"I don't know about you." Sharon's voice broke into his thoughts. "But I'm getting hungry. What do you say we order some dinner?"

* * *

They settled on pizza in the end. Sharon didn't feel up to leaving the house, and Rusty was either unwilling to leave her, afraid to go out alone, or some combination of both. They would talk about that tomorrow, maybe, or the day after, but she wasn't keen on letting him out of her sight at the moment, either.

She asked for extra cheese, then extra sauce, then, a moment later, extra pepperoni for Rusty's half and extra mushrooms for herself, and inquired if they had any desserts. She cringed inwardly at the price the employee quoted at her from the other end of the phone. It was more than she usually would've spent on pizza of all things, especially when she factored in the tip, especially when she thought of all the things that she was going to have to repair or replace, but she thanked the person on the other end of the phone and hung up without changing her mind.

Rusty's expression was priceless, and she felt a real smile on her face for the first time in hours. Pizza wasn't her first choice when she was looking to indulge in something, but it was something that they could both agree on and it was a bad idea to mix her painkillers with alcohol.

She needed Rusty to help her to the table. She'd been given a cane instead of crutches because of her wrist and though she could stand without the leg buckling beneath her, it hurt less to let Rusty support her with an arm beneath her shoulders. She propped her leg up on the chair beside her, and Rusty brought her a pillow to slide beneath it.

He asked her at least half a dozen times before the pizza arrived if she needed anything else.

Once the table was set and the pizza had come, Sharon was grateful for the splurge. Sitting down to eat dinner with her son was the sort of normalcy that she had been missing from her life this past week, and doing so tonight would make her feel better than anything else.

At least the disruption of their normal routine had only lasted for a week this time, she told herself, and helped herself to a slice. "We can watch a movie after dinner, if you'd like."

Rusty gave her a sideways glance as he took two slices. "Uh..."

He was probably worrying that she'd hit her head hard enough to forget they no longer had a TV. Fantastic.

"You still have your laptop, don't you?"

"Uh... yeah," he said. "But, like... it's really _your_ laptop, and if you need it back now that you, uh... don't have one anymore?"

She hummed. "So that way you get the new one, you mean?" She thought she saw him try not to smile, and it lightened her heart a little. "I suppose we could call it a graduation present."

"What?" Rusty's head came up. "No, that's not why I—_Sharon._.."

"Pick out the one you want," she said. "We'll order it tomorrow. The TV, too, if you don't mind sitting around the house next week waiting for the delivery. I know I promised you we'd go buy a new one tomorrow, but it'll be awhile before I feel up to walking around the mall, I think."

Rusty gave her an unmistakably guilty look. Sharon tried not to sigh. She wasn't sure whether he was apologizing for not defending her property, an idea that gave her heart palpitations if she thought on it too long because Gardner's only aim had been to hurt her. He wouldn't have hesitated to kill anyone he found in her home.

She would replace the TV and have her posters re-framed. She would buy new curtains. She didn't care about any of that, as long as she wouldn't be burying him. Those few minutes, when she hadn't known... She was trying not to think about that.

Or he was upset that she'd been hurt. Sharon reached down to rub her knee. It ached, and it would ache more in the morning, but there was nothing to forgive there, either.

She lay down on the couch after dinner, making herself as comfortable as she could be while flat on her back with one pillow beneath her legs and the stupid bag of peas held between her knees while she waited for Rusty to haul his laptop and speakers and all their assorted cords into the living room.

He set the laptop on the coffee table and stood there for a moment, watching her. When she lifted an eyebrow, he rocked forward on his feet, his mouth opening. Then he thought better of whatever he'd been about to say and turned around, taking one of the cords with him as he went towards the wall. Sharon tried not to roll her eyes.

"Hey, Sharon?"

She strained to lift her neck enough to see over the coffee table, watching Rusty as he crouched down near the outlet. "Yes?"

"Who's Ally?"

Someone she didn't want to think about at the moment. Sharon let her head drop down onto the pillow and closed her eyes.

"Sharon?" When she opened her eyes, it was to find Rusty staring at her worriedly. "I—I'm sorry, I just heard you talking you talking to that guy. Elliot. You seemed kind of... upset."

"Yes," she said, and sighed. "It's a very long story."

"And it's none of my business?" he finished, already sounding resigned to it. He came and settled himself on the floor in front of her, his back pressed up against the couch. It was the easiest way for them to both see the smaller screen.

Sharon tried to resist the urge to reach out and smooth his hair. "Not tonight, it's not," she agreed. "Ask me again tomorrow."

"Really?" He craned his neck backwards. "You're actually going to tell me?"

"This time." She figured he had the right to know why he'd been put in danger twice in a week. She felt a little guilty too.

He noticed when she shivered. "Do you want a blanket or something?"

"You don't—" But he was already standing. "Thank you," she said instead, and carefully pushed herself up.

She needed his help in the end to get the blanket tucked around her legs. She couldn't lean forward all the way without feeling the muscles in her knee pull and for all that she knew she was lucky to have limped away with relatively minor injuries, that didn't mean it didn't _hurt._

"Do you need... anything?"

"I'm fine," she said, and motioned him back around. "If you'd pick something we'll both enjoy, I'd appreciate that."

She thought he was turning around. When he turned towards her instead and bent down, he caught her by surprise, and his arms were already around her neck before hers started moving. It wasn't a comfortable way to hug, with him standing over her and her not able to move quite as much as she would have liked, but it was _a_ hug, and they didn't do that as often as she would have liked.

Usually, only when something had scared him.

"I'm okay," she murmured, slowly tightening her arms around his shoulders. "Rusty... I'm okay."

He mumbled something into her hair and held on a little tighter.

Closing her eyes, Sharon smiled. "I love you too."


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes: **Special thank you to SChimes, who answered all of my driving-related questions, as I... don't really do that, so much.

**Chapter II**

**Saturday**

Sharon was jarred out of a deep sleep when Rusty knocked on her bedroom door to reassure himself that she hadn't died during the night. Or so she presumed from his anxious expression once she roused herself out of bed, limped to the door, and opened it, all the while feeling as though she'd been hit by a truck.

Which... ironically, _that_ part of this nightmare had only left her with a minor backache. Though it hadn't actually been a truck, and it hadn't actually hit _her_.

She couldn't remember what she'd been dreaming of, afterwards, but it must have been unsettling because she woke with her heart in her throat and beads of sweat gathered on her forehead. The first knock made her tense. The one that followed made her groan. She'd locked the door the night before, and that meant she had to get up now.

"Just a minute," she called, and slowly eased herself first up and then out of bed. Her spine cracked in protest. Sharon winced at the sound, glad for the cane because her knee threatened to give beneath her.

Her good leg was sore now too. The stiffness was always worse the day after, and she knew from experience that it would be worst tomorrow.

She wasn't looking forward to that.

A look at the clock as she passed it told her it was almost nine thirty. No wonder Rusty was wondering if she was still alive.

When she made it to the door, Rusty was standing relative to the door in a manner best described as hovering, his hand raised and poised to knock again.

She tried not to frown at him. She knew that he was worried. For all that he sometimes implied that she was old and uncool, the _horror_, he hadn't made a single remark about the cane yet.

"Uh..." Slowly, he lowered his hand. "Hi."

She felt a tiny huff of amusement threaten to escape. "Good morning."

"Are you, like..." He hesitated. She must've looked terrible, because his eyes were still anxious. "Okay?"

"I feel better than I did last night," she said. "Did you sleep all right?"

"Sharon." He gave her an exasperated look. "I slept fine."

She took another look at him, her sleep-addled brain catching up to her. He was dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, not pajamas, and those were shoes on his feet. "Going somewhere?"

"You said you wanted your car back."

"I did." She nodded. "Let me shower and then I'll call Lieutenant Flynn."

"Oh, I did that already."

"What?" She stared at him. He didn't mean... "He's on his way over _now?_"

"Well... yeah."

_Rusty_.

"Should I call him back?" Rusty looked confused, then alarmed. "Did you want to come with us or something?"

Sharon shook her head. She could stand well enough, but she didn't relish the idea of walking. "I would've liked to have been dressed before he got here."

"I was just going to meet him downstairs..."

Sharon shook her head. "Bring him upstairs with you when you get back," she instructed. "I'm sure there are other things he'd rather be doing with his morning, and I'd like to thank him in person, not a text message."

"Okay," Rusty repeated, in a tone that conveyed again that he didn't see what the big deal was. "But, like, I think he knows?"

Then again, this was the same boy who had been sat down for a lecture on _thx_ and a smiley face being an insufficient response to a birthday gift.

"Thank you," she said. She shifted the cane to the crook of her arm to allow herself to reach for his arm. "I know there are other things _you_ would rather be doing this morning too."

He just shrugged. Sharon patted his arm again and made sure that he had everything he needed. He promised twice that he would drive carefully and only rolled his eyes when she tried to make him say it a third time. She let him go after that, waiting until the door had locked behind him before she slowly made her way to the bathroom.

After some deliberation, she decided that the extra hassle of a bath outweighed the potential embarrassment of concussing herself while hopping around the shower on one leg, and went to the tub instead. She felt better afterwards, relaxing on the couch in comfortable pants and her favorite sweater, smelling of her shampoo and lotions, clean and scrubbed free of any lingering traces of dirt or dried blood that she'd missed yesterday.

She should change her sheets too.

Sharon considered herself, braces still on her wrist and her knee, and the ice pack again beneath her leg.

... She would enlist Rusty's help with that, maybe.

Sharon pulled her phone from her pocket. After eleven, and no word from either Rusty or Andy. Had they run into traffic? Was there trouble at the repair shop? There shouldn't have been. Rusty was listed on her insurance, and she'd told the staff there that either she or her son would pick up the car.

_Where are you?_

When no answer instantaneously followed, Sharon tilted her head back against the pillows and tried not to sigh. She knew she was still on alert. That would change, given a couple of days and restoring the condo to normal.

The living room looked bare without the curtains, and Sharon felt uneasy without them. She left them open the majority of the time, and they were cheap things she'd found while shopping at IKEA with Emily during one of her visits home. She'd chosen them simply because she'd liked them, and there had been no sentimental value attached, but she missed them now that they were gone.

Sharon shifted on the couch, reaching behind herself in a futile effort to make herself comfortable by rearranging the pillows. When that failed, she cast her eyes down the hall and thought longingly of retreating into her bedroom. No one went in there, not even Rusty.

As far as she knew, he hadn't touched it. Oh, he would've, given enough time, but the officers she'd dispatched had arrived before he'd had a chance to do more than trash the living room.

Sharon stayed where she was. Rusty and Andy were due back soon, and she did want to thank Andy for his help. Nor did she want to let herself be chased out of her own living room by the memory of a dead man.

But oh, she did hate that he'd come here.

It bothered her more than him wanting to kill her at all, that he'd wanted to destroy her home first.

Though if revenge was what he'd wanted, he'd been off to a good start. That was what he blamed her for losing. His life, his home, and his children.

Rusty.

A shiver ran down her spine. Sharon hugged her arms against her chest, trying to console herself with the knowledge that he was fine and that her other two were far out of his reach this time, and that Gardner was dead on top of it all. No one was going to take them from her.

She couldn't stand to think about that any longer.

But in some ways, it was easier to worry about them than herself.

Sharon checked the time with a flick of her wrist. Traffic, she told herself. It was late morning on a Saturday. People would be out.

Fed up with herself, she picked up her phone again. Emily would be dancing right now, but there was a good chance that Ricky would pick up. He answered after the first ring. "Mom?"

Sharon closed her eyes, releasing a breath she couldn't remember taking. "How are you, sweetheart?"

She listened to him chatter about his work for a few minutes, understanding one word in three. He was still thinking of doing some traveling. Maybe he'd go up the coast from San Francisco to Alaska. Maybe he'd tour the world. He didn't know.

Yes, he'd gotten a haircut.

"I can _hear_ you laughing."

Sharon pressed the back of her hand to her mouth, angling the phone away from her in an effort to muffle the sound. "I thought it was cute," she said, still smiling.

"Sure you did." There was a pause. "So how's my new little brother?"

Her smile faded. "He's..."

"Mom?"

"It's been an eventful week," she said, curling her fingers around the phone. She would rather that he hear it from her than from Rusty.

"More than the car?"

The car.

Sharon closed her eyes, tilting her head back. "That's where it started."

**Monday**

When she left work, the only thing on her mind was going home and taking her shoes off, maybe working in a quick call to Ricky before dinner. She'd been making an effort to call him more regularly since his visit a few weeks ago. She wanted him getting his information from her, not from Jack.

Sharon hoped Rusty felt like cooking, because she certainly wasn't in the mood to fix anything more complex than a salad and no, they _couldn't_ go out for hamburgers. Or pizza. Definitely not ice cream... though she'd reached her car while thinking about it and, while she'd never admit it, something cold and sweet sounded heavenly after walking two blocks in the late afternoon heat.

Sitting down made her instantly more amenable to the thought of eating real food. By the time she started the car and turned on the air conditioner, she thought she could stomach the idea of cooking. Maybe she wouldn't be completely remiss tonight in her responsibilities as an adult or as a mother after all.

Sharon hummed to herself and tilted her head back against the seat, waiting a few moments for the car to cool down. Rusty knew what he was getting himself into. It was somewhat gratifying to know that he thought she had enough positive attributes to balance out her unjustified prejudice against bacon, her unnecessary fixation on his driving, and her irritating insistence on always being right.

And having met his mother for herself...

Sharon tightened her fingers around the steering wheel as she reached to release the parking brake with her other hand. No, she told herself. She wasn't going to spoil her afternoon by dwelling on that today. It was Monday and she'd already made arrests in not one but two cases when what began as a convenience store robbery shortly after midnight became murder. The gun matched up as the weapon used in a murder three years before but luckily, the store surveillance cameras were in working order, so she arrested one gentleman for shooting the store clerk and a witness, and then his girlfriend for the murder of her ex-boyfriend. It looked like the girlfriend would get a deal in exchange for her testimony.

So it had been a good day, all in all. They would finalize the details in the morning, and then she would probably be landed with a case that didn't resolve itself so nicely, but for now, Sharon was going to go home, talk to her children, and unwind.

Life allowed her the luxury of thinking so for a couple of blocks.

She was still on First when the accident happened.

The black Subaru behind her was tailgating from the moment she pulled away from the curb. That was nothing new. Sharon allowed some distance to build between her and the car ahead of her, fantasizing briefly about arresting the driver of the Subaru when he ran a red light just behind her. But reality intruded unpleasantly into her imagination and the thought of the paperwork to follow, not to mention the explanations Chief Taylor would demand, made the idea much less satisfying than she would've liked, so Sharon just drove exactly the speed as the car ahead of her and kept a close eye on the Subaru.

It was rush hour and they were already well below the speed limit, but she slowed again in the hope that he'd be frustrated enough to either pass her or turn down another street.

When she slowed again, it was because traffic came suddenly to a dead stop and even with the room between her and the Honda in front of her, Sharon had to brake hard to keep from crashing into the car in front of her.

The Subaru drove right into her.

She saw it coming a split second before it happened. She had just enough time to feel her skin prickle in alarm, her heart dropping into her stomach, but there was nowhere for her to go.

She was lucky.

It could have been worse.

The driver slammed on his brakes at the last moment and they had been moving so slowly in the first place, but there was still the nasty crunch of impact and the sensation of being flung forward into her seatbelt, the belt straining against her chest and the side of her neck.

By the time she was thrown backwards into her seat, Sharon had determined that she was unharmed but angry. Angry became furious when she looked out the front windshield and saw that she'd been pushed into the rear of the car ahead of her. She dreaded to see where the chain ended.

Behind her, a horn was honking.

Sharon took a deep breath, then reached over and grabbed her purse. The driver of the white Honda was already out of his car when she reached for the door handle, marching towards the Subaru. He was a sturdy blond man, currently looking about as pleased as Sharon felt. She moved a little more quickly.

"Sir," she began, moving to intercept him.

He ignored her. "Hey, _asshole_—"

"Gentlemen!" Sharon stepped in between the two men before they either came to blows or shot each other and she had to make an arrest after all. It would've been more satisfying now. She reached for her badge. "We're not going to be doing that."

"I'm sorry," the driver of the Subaru said. He was the smaller of the two, but still well-built and muscular, and probably able to hold his own in a fight. Sharon was still hoping to prevent that. "I didn't know you were a cop."

Sharon held up her hand before the other driver could respond. "In the future, assume that everyone driving around you is a police officer," she advised him. "This is what we're going to do now. We're going to exchange information, we're going to take pictures, and then we're going to _get out_ of the road while we wait for the police before someone gets hurt. Understood? Driver's licenses, both of you," she said, without giving either of them a chance to argue. "Now."

Her spirits were slightly improved at the discovery that both men were in possession of valid driver's licenses _and_ actually insured. That was more than she'd been expecting. Her mood soured again when Jonathan Farrell asked if she was sure he couldn't just give her statement directly to her because she _was_ a cop, after all, and then he gave it to her anyway.

"He's an asshole. There. That's my statement." He then turned to look directly at Samuel Meyers and followed it up with several more choice words and something about the removal of certain body parts.

Sharon resisted the urge to rub her forehead. "If you can't behave yourself, sir, I'll arrest you for threatening him and you can cool off in a holding cell, do you understand?" She pointed to his car. "Get back in your car, pull up against the curb, and _stay there._"

She turned to look at the other man, who despite being the cause of this trouble was currently less aggravating because he'd been content to stand silently and let her deal with the angry Mr. Farrell. "You too," she told him. "Move your car and wait."

Only after he did that did she return to her own car, trying not to think too much about how she was going to have to replace _both_ bumpers _and_ a headlight, to move it out of the way and then to call Rusty. She was going to need a ride home from the repair shop and so help her, if he made _one_ remark about her driving, she was going to throttle him.

**Saturday**

She painted the broadest picture she could for Ricky. Enough detail that he would have the gist of it, vague enough that he wouldn't worry more than he had to.

He recognized the name. "Wasn't he the one who..."

She'd hoped that he wouldn't remember. "Yes. He was the one."

"I thought he went to prison."

"For awhile, yes," she said. "But the justice system doesn't sentence people according to my personal feelings."

Unfortunately. She thought again of Rusty's mother, and made herself a note to request one of those random drug tests that she'd spoken of whenever she went back to work.

"Has anyone ever told you you'd make a great overlord?"

"Just you." And Emily. And Rusty.

"But Mom," Ricky added, more seriously. "Are you all right? I mean... it sounds like you've had a tough week."

He spoke in the same worried tone she'd heard before, with none of the disrespect or Jack's condescension. Sharon wrapped the ends of her sweater around herself. "I'm fine, sweetheart."

"And Rusty?"

She tried to think of the Rusty who'd helpfully gone to get her car for her, not the one who'd been terrified and clinging to her. "He'll be fine too."

The sound of a key turning in the lock made her spine stiffen, and there was an instant where she thought of her gun still with FID before she heard Andy's muffled voice. "I have to go, honey," she said. "I'll call you again later. Love you."

"Love you too."

She hung up just as the door opened, and struggled to sit up all the way. "Hey," she said. "How'd it go?"

Rusty entered first, followed by Andy. The lieutenant held a paper bag in each hand. Rusty held up the keys and caught her eye like he was about to toss them to her, then thought better of it. He came around and dropped them into her open palm instead. "We brought you lunch."

Andy held up the bags. It looked like an awful lot for just one person. Sharon raised an eyebrow. "The kid invited me to stay. Told him he didn't have to, but he said you wouldn't mind."

Rusty gave her a resigned look. She tried not to smile. He was always going to be _the kid_.

"I don't." Sharon stood slowly, wincing as she tested her weight. "That was very thoughtful of you, Rusty. And thank you, Lieutenant, for your help."

"It was no trouble," he said. "How's the leg?"

"Better," she said. "I'll be fine in a couple of days."

She left the cane where it was and limped the few feet to the table. Andy set the bags on the table and then went to the kitchen to help Rusty pull down plates and glasses for everyone while Sharon opened the bags and peered inside. The first contained two side salads and a smaller bag full of fries. Sharon stole one of the fries and left the rest, chewing it slowly as she took one salad for herself and set the other to one side for Andy. The fries were obviously Rusty's.

The sandwiches were in the second bag. Again, it was obvious which one went to who. Avocado and sprouts to Andy, half a dozen kinds of meats and cheeses to Rusty, and chicken and avocado for herself. Rusty set a glass of water front of her, and she took it, smiling.

"Thank you for lunch," she said, and he shrugged.

"I was kinda hungry anyway." He must have realized how that sounded a moment later, because he added, "But you're welcome."

"No trouble with the car?" she prompted.

Rusty shook his head.

Sharon glanced at Andy for confirmation and he gave her a little nod. "It was fine. Car looks great."

"Especially the flames on the door."

Sharon narrowed her eyes.

Rusty lowered his head, the corners of his lips twitching.

"Oh," she said. "I was hoping they would turn out all right."

"I told you that wouldn't work."

Sharon snuck another fry off the edge of Rusty's plate and did her level best not to laugh.


End file.
